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Cook Up Creativity With This Missing Ingredient

By: Kevin Eikenberry
Kevin Eikenberry
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creativity

As leaders, we are trying to help our teams achieve new goals and reach new targets. We are constantly attempting to produce more at higher quality and greater profits. All of this implies that we must do things in new ways, because, as Einstein famously stated, doing the same things and expecting new results is insanity.

So as leaders, whether we have thought about it this way or not, we must be creative and we must encourage our team to think creatively if we want to reach our goals.

Hopefully this is leading you to ask this question: So how do I help people (including myself) be more creative?

The question is a big one, and I couldn’t possibly answer it completely here – but I can talk about one piece of the puzzle that is overlooked. It is a piece that anyone can apply and there are things anyone can do immediately to improve their creative output.

But first, a story.

In 1948 George de Mestral took his dog for a walk in the woods. When they returned, the dog’s coat and George’s pants were covered with burrs. As an amateur inventor, George took the burr off his pant leg and examined it under a microscope. He quickly saw all of the small hooks that enabled the seed-bearing burr to cling tightly to the tiny loops in the fabric of his pants.

From that experience, and much trial and error, we now have Velcro.

For many, the missing ingredient to cook up creative ideas is raw experience.

Steve Jobs said:

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences.”

If creativity is connecting things, the more things we have to connect to, the more fodder for creativity that we have.

So how can we use this insight to create new ideas in our workplaces every day?

Here are four ways to get started.

1. Give people time to make connections.

Connections take time – so create that time. One of the biggest mistakes that leaders make is to put people in a sterile conference room and expect them to come up with brilliant ideas, on demand. Why not give people time to let their brains work on the problem by explaining/defining the situation?

2. Search for connections.

When solving a problem or looking for creative ideas, ask people what this situation reminds them of in their life experiences. This strategy opens people up to more than focusing on the specifics of the problem and let’s their brains search for those connections – and it is OK if they come from really strange places – the goal here is the resulting idea, not to analyze where the connection came from.

3. Create connections.

While you are trying to solve a particular problem, keep that idea at the front of your mind. Consciously look for connections between everything you are doing, watching, and reading and your problem. When you put your problem front and center in your mind and consciously look, you might be surprised at the connections you find. But to super-charge this idea in the short and long term, make sure you are doing the final piece of this puzzle.

4. Create new connections.

This is the meta idea of this article. If creativity is about making connections, then to be more creative we need to experience more diverse things. Sitting on the couch watching TV every night won’t cut it; nor will reading the same magazines, attending the same conferences, and talking to the same people at work. Make it your strategy to consistently put new inputs in your life experience. After all, if George and his dog don’t go for a walk in the woods, we still might not have Velcro.

The cool thing about this list is that none of it costs you (or anyone) any money, it is available to everyone, and it is even fun. Let’s see…free, easy and fun – that sounds like the start of a great strategy to me!

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Kevin Eikenberry

ABOUT:

Kevin Eikenberry

Kevin is a world renowned leadership expert, a two-time bestselling author, speaker, consultant, trainer, coach, leader, learner, husband and father (not necessarily in that order). He is the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a leadership and learning consulting company that has been helping organizations, teams and individuals reach their potential since 1993. Kevin’s specialties include leadership, teams and teamwork, organizational culture, facilitating change, organizational learning and more.

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